Zohar wrote:I apologize for not responding to previous messages - I became very tired and exhausted, and wasn't sure I'm explaining myself.

Yes, I still think voting for Trump is an indicator of some amount of racism on the part of the voter. However, I don't think that's a helpful distinction to make, it's not conducive to communication. I consider it a personal goal for myself to manage to develop empathy for his supporters. I find that very challenging, but it's a crucial step in acclimating to this new reality.

Zohar wrote:I apologize for not responding to previous messages - I became very tired and exhausted, and wasn't sure I'm explaining myself.

Yes, I still think voting for Trump is an indicator of some amount of racism on the part of the voter. However, I don't think that's a helpful distinction to make, it's not conducive to communication. I consider it a personal goal for myself to manage to develop empathy for his supporters. I find that very challenging, but it's a crucial step in acclimating to this new reality.

That is a good thing about not being from the US, I don't have to do that.* I can think as negatively of huge parts of the USA as I want and so should Trump exceed my expectations of how bad he will be (well I have a range of expectations so exceed what I consider most likely) I get to consider every single one of them as guilty of it as Trump himself. And it won't impact my social life one bit. Not that it will do anything positive but nothing negative either. And if he is within in my expectations in 4-8 years he will mostly stop being a conversation topic anyway.

(Until my country does something similar of course.)

* Well emphasize yes just not ever sympathize. Understanding people is always useful.

Some of those things are reasonable. Nominate a new judge? Sure. Some, less so. 3.5 strikes me as a hilarious "action" that requires him to do absolutely nothing, but sounds nice for anti-immigration sorts. I am extremely dubious that massive infrastructure changes can be made without corresponding spending.

Non-American here, I've been trying to find good resources on this, but so far haven't really been able to. Is there any good explanation out there of what exactly a president can do without going through congress/senate/etc? That would clarify a lot for me in terms of what Trump would actually be able to do.

Wonderbolt wrote:Non-American here, I've been trying to find good resources on this, but so far haven't really been able to. Is there any good explanation out there of what exactly a president can do without going through congress/senate/etc? That would clarify a lot for me in terms of what Trump would actually be able to do.

It's a solid question.

Notable is the excellent platform for addressing the public, colloquially known as the "bully pulpit" for historical reasons. This has significant influence.

Additionally, the president can do a number of executive actions, ranging from Executive Orders to less formal things, such as visits, since he does head the executive branch. This includes running the military, albeit not declarations of war, and of course, funding bills and such are still subject to congress.

Grant federal pardons.

Appoint officials to lesser offices. I forget which ones require congressional approval and which don't, offhand, but some lesser positions are not subject to approval.

Visit and accept visits from ambassadors.

There's a lot of other things that do involve the House, etc, and the above list is pretty decent, but yeah, for the most part, strong presidential/congressional hostility does greatly limit the president's power.

CorruptUser wrote:I'd like the Dems to clean house of the anti-science crowd. The anti-vaxxers, the anti-gmos, the anti-nukes. Let the Republicans have the monopoly on the stupid.

They'd have to alienate their critical theory-affirming pomo humanities major college undergrad base. Which ain't happening.

Since I've written this sentence a few times with less than stellar results (which I'll attribute to being a humanities guy who predominantly works cross discipline with science writers), I'm going to crib a few words from Stephen Jay Gould. By all means speak out against poor scholarship, but please bear in mind that your high opinion of those in the humanities are, well, fucking offensive.

Stephen Jay Gould wrote:Nothing but habit and tradition separate the 'two cultures' of humanities and science. The processes of thought and modes of reason are similar—so are the people. Only subject matter differs. Science may usually treat the world's empirical information; art may thrive on aesthetic judgement. But scientists also traffic in ideas and opinions, and artists surely respect fact. The idée fixe is a common intellectual fault in all professions, not a characteristic failure of artists.

Wonderbolt wrote:Non-American here, I've been trying to find good resources on this, but so far haven't really been able to. Is there any good explanation out there of what exactly a president can do without going through congress/senate/etc? That would clarify a lot for me in terms of what Trump would actually be able to do.

To executive orders, I imagine he will start by repealing Obamas executive orders which also gives some idea what can be done with executive orders.

EdgarJPublius wrote:Honestly, I feel like Obama's inexperience showed, and cost him big, especially in the second term.

He just couldn't find a way to work with congress, and that's not entirely, or even mostly his fault, but instead of going back to congress when they rebuffed him and trying to find common ground for deals and compromises, he just tried to force what he wanted through with executive action that only served to entrench the republicans in congress against him even more than they already were.

I got the impression (from several thousand miles and several unoccupied time zones away) that he was trying too hard to reach a compromise solution to everything and get the (R) mob to agree with him, and they just kept backing away further and further right, leading him on like a kid leading a lame puppy along with an always-just-out-of-reach treat. I know they were blocking everything they didn't like, but he was elected on a position and didn't stick to it. Given the choice between being President Obama (R) and getting a little of their agenda accomplished and being President Obama (D) and getting almost nothing accomplished, he switched sides.

That's probably an exaggerated view formed from reading particular news sources and skipping over some stories, but I really didn't get the impression he wasn't trying to get a consensus.

CorruptUser wrote:I'd like the Dems to clean house of the anti-science crowd. The anti-vaxxers, the anti-gmos, the anti-nukes. Let the Republicans have the monopoly on the stupid.

They'd have to alienate their critical theory-affirming pomo humanities major college undergrad base. Which ain't happening.

Since I've written this sentence a few times with less than stellar results (which I'll attribute to being a humanities guy who predominantly works cross discipline with science writers), I'm going to crib a few words from Stephen Jay Gould. By all means speak out against poor scholarship, but please bear in mind that your high opinion of those in the humanities are, well, fucking offensive.

I think he's referring to the postmodernism in general, which is the worst thing to have ever slithered out of the Philosophy department.

It's a shame, really. I do have a great deal of respect for certain Humanities degrees, like History and Anthropology, viewing them as intellectual equals to Physics. Not to mention that Philosophy originally laid the groundwork for Computer Science, and that Ethics is an especially important field as we begin to create Artificial Intelligence (should a self driving car kill you to save 10 pedestrians?).

I think he did generally try to reach out. And I think it was good of him to try, though I agree that for the most part, Republicans were not interested in returning the favor. There were a few comments, such as his much-quoted note about guns and religion, that indicate a rather good understanding of at least some aspects of Republican culture.

The reliance on executive orders is a sticking spot for Republicans, but I do doubt that they'd love him even if he refrained from utilizing them.

Also, beyond the ACA, Obama really didn't get into super sweeping changes. Mostly pretty limited, if you're looking at it with an unbiased eye. The ACA'll probably be the lightening rod, though. Any significant changes to that, and Republicans get to claim victory, since they've been harping on it for forever. I'm not sure precisely *what* changes Trump wants for it...his 100 day goals are somewhat limited on detail. But, the mandate's the unpopular thing, so axing that will almost certainly be the central point, whatever else there is. Then everyone Republican high fives, declares Obama's changes dead, and moves on. The smaller stuff probably won't attract nearly so much attention as the ACA.

CorruptUser wrote:It's a shame, really. I do have a great deal of respect for certain Humanities degrees, like History and Anthropology, viewing them as intellectual equals to Physics.

Oh how magnanimous of you.

The fact that you couldn't cut it in a philosophy or literature program doesn't mean the fields are intellectually inferior to the almighty STEM. (And an expert in one area of science or mathematics wandering into one they know nothing about can be every bit as embarrassing as an ill-informed philosopher pontificating about science.)

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

Obama selected who the Republican House Judiciary Committee's head said they would appoint to the SC with no problem.

He not only didn't say yes, they put their fingers in their ears and said "no, we won't even listen, lalalalala".

Obama took a Republican-invented state health care plan and rolled it out over the entire USA. They spend the next 7 years saying it was the worst thing ever, including the Republican who implemented the health-care plan in his home state to start with.

ACA isn't a Democratic-designed health care plan. It was a moderate Republican health-care plan. Which he passed, to universal Republican opposition, because their apparent goal was to prevent Obama from doing anything at all. Anything that a Democratic president did could be used as "look at the good thing we did".

Saying "he should have compromised more" doesn't make sense. He did everything short of saying "pass any bill you want and I'll blindly sign it".

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision - BR

Wonderbolt wrote:Non-American here, I've been trying to find good resources on this, but so far haven't really been able to. Is there any good explanation out there of what exactly a president can do without going through congress/senate/etc? That would clarify a lot for me in terms of what Trump would actually be able to do.

Many federal laws are written so that the executive can make guidelines that determine the details of there implementation.

For example: federal drug laws are written in the form of "Schedule <X> control". The Food and Drug administration determines what schedule a drug belongs to. The reason for this is that thousands of drugs must be scheduled and new scientific information may radically change the appropriate policies for a drug.

Basically, there's usually some level of interpretation in how the executive branch will do what it does.

The federal government also distributes money to state/local governments for areas traditionally under their control. These distributions are conditional.

Some of these conditions are obvious (education money must be spent on education), some are controversial (educational institutions cannot segregate bathrooms by legal sex, only self-identified sex), and some are downright weird (highway money is conditional on maintaining laws forbidding drinking under 21).

Of the things on the list, I'd say without the help of congress at all, Trump could do 2.3, 3.1, and 3.3. The executive fully has the authority power to do 3.4, but more means (aka money) would be needed to do it on the scale he's discussed.

The thing about recursion problems is that they tend to contain other recursion problems.

Lucrece wrote:The whole idea that Hillary just couldn't inspire like Obama is a load of shit, anyways. Trump was up for election, that simple.

What Obama didn't have was baggage. Hillary had too much. Hillary shouldn't have been the candidate.

... are you kidding me? Do you NOT remember the rhetoric of 08? Obama was a waffler! He's a Muslim! He wasn't born in this country! I don't know where he stands on the issues!

Obama won. The only other thing you really need to look at is who will be sitting in the Oval Office in the spring. It won't be Hillary. You can question my rationale for why she won't, but none the less she won't. She was a bad candidate. She lost. End of story.

CorruptUser wrote:It's a shame, really. I do have a great deal of respect for certain Humanities degrees, like History and Anthropology, viewing them as intellectual equals to Physics. Not to mention that Philosophy originally laid the groundwork for Computer Science, and that Ethics is an especially important field as we begin to create Artificial Intelligence (should a self driving car kill you to save 10 pedestrians?).

Maybe you can understand why the "uneducated" distrust people like you. It isn't enough to get a degree, it has to be the right degree. It's elitest and demeaning.

CorruptUser wrote:It's a shame, really. I do have a great deal of respect for certain Humanities degrees, like History and Anthropology, viewing them as intellectual equals to Physics.

Oh how magnanimous of you.

The fact that you couldn't cut it in a philosophy or literature program doesn't mean the fields are intellectually inferior to the almighty STEM. (And an expert in one area of science or mathematics wandering into one they know nothing about can be every bit as embarrassing as an ill-informed philosopher pontificating about science.)

Actually, I do feel that Philosophy is intellectually equal to mathematics.

As for literature, it's usually intellectually rigorous, but it does need to clean house. Bigtime.

Insurance was getting progressively more expensive before the ACA, and insurance company stock values were going up right alongside it. The ACA has had an effect on how much certain people pay, but it's not to blame for any trends that started before Obama was even elected.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

You know, I stand by my statements that Comey was speaking the simple truth when he said that no reasonable prosecutor would have brought charges against Clinton for the email case. But I find myself wondering what the chances are of Obama issuing a general, Nixon-esque "for all offenses [she] has committed or may have committed" pardon towards her on his way out. On one hand, it would obviously be embarrassing to her and listening to the cries of corruption and how it proved what everyone knew all along would be more than slightly unpalatable. On the other hand, if the conciliatory tone of Trump's acceptance speech doesn't hold ... holy hell would a Clinton trial be terrible for the country.

I think he should; optics doesn't really matter at this point, I think. Dems just need to clean house next year to prepare for 2018; give Sanders a major role in the party to reach out to poor and middle class whites.

Behold your only true messiah. An entity of which you're a part.A vast and cold indifferent being. A grey clad mass without a heart.

That doesn't really make any sense. Clinton's chances of getting convicted are basically nil, and if Obama issuing a pardon would cause people to explode in partisan anger at what many would consider an admission of guilt anyway, might as well wait to see what Trump ends up doing. I also suspect - but I may be wrong on this one - that Obama is simply too idealistic to do such a thing.

gmalivuk wrote:Insurance was getting progressively more expensive before the ACA, and insurance company stock values were going up right alongside it. The ACA has had an effect on how much certain people pay, but it's not to blame for any trends that started before Obama was even elected.

The ACA was justified, at least in part, as curbing rising costs. It didn't really do that. So, for that goal, at least, it's a failure.

It's certainly true that the costs were rising long before the ACA, and the rate has stayed roughly the same, so the ACA isn't the cause...but neither is it a solution. And it's a *really* convenient scapegoat for the Republicans. So, they're gonna tear it up.

Thesh wrote:I think he should; optics doesn't really matter at this point, I think. Dems just need to clean house next year to prepare for 2018; give Sanders a major role in the party to reach out to poor and middle class whites.

Might as well. Clinton's a dead loss as a candidate anyways. Running her for the Presidency *again* would be amazingly tone-deaf. A pardon would get her out of the way quickly and put an end to the investigations, with enough time for the predictable furor to die down. Then run someone entirely different next time with no real connections to Clinton. I mean, yeah, it would look bad if you were going to run her as a candidate again, and would be taken as an admission of guilt...but if you're not doing that anyhow, there's no real cost.

Sanders, even if he doesn't run himself next time, obviously has some appeal. Democrats have got to leverage that.

Eh I think with the reps being unopposed if there is a will to do it they could find a way to imprison her. But that aside years of trials against her would be a shit show, a pardon would cause some screams about that proving her guilt but mostly from people considering her guilty of everything anyway. And I think it would last much shorter than if they try to throw her in prison. Tha trials would take a long time.

So what do y'all think the chances are that Trump will actually push the trial thing (assuming no pardon or anything of the sort)? I was pretty sure that it's just political posturing, especially considering his tone afterwards, and the fact that before he ran he never seemed to particularly hate the Clintons. But a lot of people here seem more worried? I've also seen a lot of "well we all thought Trump would never do X, and now he's doing exactly that, so might as well prepare for the worst".

Tyndmyr wrote:Sanders, even if he doesn't run himself next time, obviously has some appeal. Democrats have got to leverage that.

As I said up-thread, he'll be too old to run again. But I absolutely agree that the next candidate has to be from the Bernie-supporting wing of the party. But experience isn't really looking like a virtue in a presidential candidate at this point (Obama was a relative neophyte when he first ran as well), so while I'm sure that guys like Booker will run - I wouldn't be surprised if that Bernie-esque candidate wound up being someone who's largely an unknown at this point.

Wonderbolt wrote:So what do y'all think the chances are that Trump will actually push the trial thing (assuming no pardon or anything of the sort)? I was pretty sure that it's just political posturing, especially considering his tone afterwards, and the fact that before he ran he never seemed to particularly hate the Clintons. But a lot of people here seem more worried? I've also seen a lot of "well we all thought Trump would never do X, and now he's doing exactly that, so might as well prepare for the worst".

Probably just posturing. He seemed to be perfectly content to not pursue her now that he's won. Unless she's somehow a threat to him in the future, which seems unlikely, he has little reason to actually pursue her. This'll probably annoy a few rabid partisan followers, but what does he care? They already voted for him, and are no longer very important to him either.

He's more out for himself, not for the greater Republican establishment.

JudeMorrigan wrote:

Tyndmyr wrote:Sanders, even if he doesn't run himself next time, obviously has some appeal. Democrats have got to leverage that.

As I said up-thread, he'll be too old to run again. But I absolutely agree that the next candidate has to be from the Bernie-supporting wing of the party. But experience isn't really looking like a virtue in a presidential candidate at this point (Obama was a relative neophyte when he first ran as well), so while I'm sure that guys like Booker will run - I wouldn't be surprised if that Bernie-esque candidate wound up being someone who's largely an unknown at this point.

Agreed. Expecting Bernie in 2020 is...highly optimistic. But Bernie could perhaps mentor someone who could win. How many Democrat first term senators or the like we have lined up for a shot then?

Wonderbolt wrote:So what do y'all think the chances are that Trump will actually push the trial thing (assuming no pardon or anything of the sort)? I was pretty sure that it's just political posturing, especially considering his tone afterwards, and the fact that before he ran he never seemed to particularly hate the Clintons. But a lot of people here seem more worried? I've also seen a lot of "well we all thought Trump would never do X, and now he's doing exactly that, so might as well prepare for the worst".

I honestly have no idea what the actual chances are of him pursuing it. I do think there's a fair chance of his appointing an independent council/special prosecutor to investigate her as a "sure, whatever, I can do that". But overall? Hell if I know. And that's slightly alarming.

I would agree that a lot of the blame goes go to congress, but Obama is not blameless. Most of his attempts to 'compromise' or 'reach out' to republicans basically amounted to blasting them publicly for not passing legislation he wanted, and then promising to circumvent congress with executive action if they couldn't come to an agreement. He used the word compromise a whole lot, but the things he was using that word to describe were not actual compromises.

By the time time Scalia died (or maybe shortly thereafter, there were some rumors of republicans willing to at least consider Obama's nominations) congress was definitely absolutely dead-set against Obama and anything he proposed, and I do not think that position was justified. But they did not start that way, and did not get there on their own.

Roosevelt wrote:

I wrote:Does Space Teddy Roosevelt wrestle Space Bears and fight the Space Spanish-American War with his band of Space-volunteers the Space Rough Riders?

I don't know. I realize things look differently to those on the right, but from where I sat, it sure seemed like the way that it would work during his first term would be that Obama would make a good faith effort to start with offers that were a good compromise and then get frustrated when Republicans treated the offers as highly liberal ones. They'd wind up getting 95% of what they wanted and then publically complain about how the last 5% was socialism. It was a very frustrating time for me as a liberal (by American standards).

It was a back and forth, I think. The Republicans started out disliking him, and wanting to stop him from whatever he was doing. However, I do think the partisanship and dislike did intensify over his term.

Obama did try for some genuine compromises at times, but yeah, especially later, attempts at compromise became less genuine. I suppose a certain frustration with the opposition may have been responsible for that, so the Republicans are definitely not innocent here. They cheerfully fed the divide all the way.

Obama might have been a little idealistic, even. Approaching it in a genuine fashion initially, rather than utilizing their need to oppose everything to manipulate them into angering their own base. That said, he definitely accomplished a lot more earlier on, as compared to later when the partisan divide grew really strong.

I am perhaps most amused by 1.3. I have no idea how he's going to require it, or how one even counts, really. Regulations are not known quantities like bread and milk. A shorter rule, or a rule written in one part instead of many, might have much broader consequences.

The anti-lobbying thing, in general, seems a bit paranoid. Perhaps he's aiming for a lot in hopes of a reasonable compromise? In any case, a bit of anti-lobbying legislation is likely to have public support, probably not a bad way to go. Throwing ex-politician lobbyists under the bus is strategically wise for an outsider.

Term limits...eh. I get the goal, but I'm not sure it'll actually help much.

About half of the "work with congress" list is reasonable, too. I could get behind some infrastructure projects, but a lot depends on what and how.

I hope you're very proud of yourself that you're not going to be a victim of this.

I don't condone the violence and hate highlighted in that article, and please don't imply that by supporting Trump, I somehow do. Also, please don't imply that the Trump supporters committing that violence are an accurate reflection of the rest of us. Do me that courtesy, and I won't imply that the Hillary supporters who are guilty of that same sort of violence are reflective of her base as a whole.

If you like Call of Cthulhu and modern government conspiracy, check out my Delta Green thread.Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments.

Diadem wrote:She is generally considered to have won all three debates. During the campaign she was often praised for how she handled Trump's antics.

That's the part that troubles me the most. Preparation, truth, and rational thought counted for nothing against bombast, gall, and statements so outrageous that they were "not even wrong". Yes, the polls showed support, but that support simply did not last more than a week or two.

The voters are the ones that have no attention span, and no appreciation for thinking. Yeah, I know, old news. But this is what it comes to.

^^^ as to the violence (above), remember that though it was in a nudge nudge wink wink manner, Trump was promoting violence. Hillary was not.

Order of the Sillies, Honoris Causam - bestowed by charlie_grumbles on NP 859 * OTTscar winner: Wordsmith - bestowed by yappobiscuts and the OTT on NP 1832 * Ecclesiastical Calendar of the Order of the Holy Contradiction * Please help addams if you can. She needs all of us.

Diadem wrote:She is generally considered to have won all three debates. During the campaign she was often praised for how she handled Trump's antics.

That's the part that troubles me the most. Preparation, truth, and rational thought counted for nothing against bombast, gall, and statements so outrageous that they were "not even wrong". Yes, the polls showed support, but that support simply did not last more than a week or two.

Not nothing. Look, she apparently actually did pull the popular vote. The map just didn't favor her.

I think had she ALSO performed poorly in the debates, it would have been worse for her...the debates helped her to some degree, but they don't overcome all other factors.

You have to keep in mind that switching is fairly low. People, for the most part, are not swapping sides every debate. What you're doing is persuading the undecided folks to join your cause, and then persuading everyone on your side to turn out to vote. The first was extremely difficult for both candidates, as people waited until very late in the election to decide, or even remained third party. Trump had the edge in turnout.

It's not so much "voters are stupid" as it is that our voting system has some odd effects, and additionally, people care about things other than debates. Her performance definitely still helped, it just wasn't enough.

Deva wrote:Found a Twitter collection of politically-influenced incidents. Repeats a few. Includes one against a Trump voter too.

So far as I can tell, all is pretty calm here in the DC area. Election evening, everything was empty as people were glued to the TV. Since then...not much. Protests scheduled, though. I do not expect them to matter much.

I hope you're very proud of yourself that you're not going to be a victim of this.

I don't condone the violence and hate highlighted in that article, and please don't imply that by supporting Trump, I somehow do. Also, please don't imply that the Trump supporters committing that violence are an accurate reflection of the rest of us. Do me that courtesy, and I won't imply that the Hillary supporters who are guilty of that same sort of violence are reflective of her base as a whole.

A criticism of Trump is that he is less outspoken against such behaviour than Hillary, and even perceived as encouraging it.

Tyndmyr wrote:Not nothing. Look, she apparently actually did pull the popular vote.

Barely. I would have expected the debate performance and the image (of preparedness vs non-) behind it to matter for much more. Inasmuch as it didn't, I am severely disappointed in American voters. Trump apparently knew this, and counted on it.

Jose

Order of the Sillies, Honoris Causam - bestowed by charlie_grumbles on NP 859 * OTTscar winner: Wordsmith - bestowed by yappobiscuts and the OTT on NP 1832 * Ecclesiastical Calendar of the Order of the Holy Contradiction * Please help addams if you can. She needs all of us.

It does cast Trump's disdain for practicing in a different light, I suppose, if you take that approach.

But...I still think that was a mistake. Trump bet too heavily on what he was familiar with, and it *could* have cost him a great deal. A fairly small shift in the margin towards Clinton, and the map would look very different.